"What on earth is it all about, I wonder?" he muttered. "Must be telling her the story of his whole life!"
He had asked her to meet him in the old rose garden when she came out. For the dozenth time he strolled in and sat down on their favorite rustic. He could neither sit still nor content himself with wandering.
"What the devil's the matter with me anyhow?" he said aloud. "The next thing I'll be thinking I'm in love—good joke—bah!"
Helen was not the ideal he had dreamed. She had simply brought a sweet companionship into his life—that was all. She was a good fellow. She could walk, ride, run and hold her own at any game he liked to play. He had walked with her over miles of hills and valleys stretching in every direction about town. He had never grown tired of these walks. He didn't have to entertain her. They were silent often for a long time. They sat down beside the roadway, laughed and talked like chums with never a thought of entertaining each other.
In the long rides they had taken in the afternoons and sometimes late in the starlight or moonlight, she had never grown silly, sentimental or tiresome. A restful and home-like feeling always filled him when she was by his side. He hadn't thought her very beautiful at first, but the longer he knew her the more charming and irresistible her companionship became.
"Her figure's a little too full for the finest type of beauty!" he was saying to himself now. "Her arms are splendid, but the least bit too big, and her face sometimes looks too strong for a girl's! It's a pity. Still, by geeminy, when she smiles she is beautiful! Her face seems to fairly blossom with funny little dimples—and that one on the chin is awfully pretty! She just misses by a hair being a stunningly beautiful girl!"
He flicked a fly from his boot with a switch he was carrying and glanced anxiously toward the house. "And I must say," he acknowledged judicially, "that she has a bright mind, her tastes are fine, her ideals high. She isn't all the time worrying over balls and dresses and beaux like a lot of silly girls I know. She's got too much sense for that. The fact is, she has a brilliant mind."
Now that he came to think of it, she had a mind of rare brilliance. Everything she said seemed to sparkle. He didn't stop to ask the reason why, he simply knew that it was so. If she spoke about the weather, her words never seemed trivial.
He rose scowling and walked back to the house.
"What on earth can they be talking about all this time?" he cried angrily. Just then his father's tall figure stepped out on the porch, walked its length and entered the sitting-room by one of the French windows.